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Neither. Because neither is wrong. And the article is trying to sensationalize a claim the scientists didn't make.

It is the average speed of the light over very large distances that needs a correction, to account for the portions of travel where the light, well, is not light. The photons still move at 2.99x10^8m/s. It's the electrons and positrons that move slower.

This is incorrect, virtual particles don't move slower, or move at all. They are probability waves that appear in particular space-time point and collapse at another. That's why they can annihilate again, at all; if they moved as normal particles, they should have flown at opposite directions due to conservation of momentum and never see each other again (think about that). This all happens actually at the speed of light. I feel like the paper's authors mess up with things they don't really understand.

The light (and all other massless particles) travels at maximum speed allowed by the structure of space-time, this is what the relativity is really about. The structure of space-time is defined by SO(3,1), where "travel" actually a rotation mixing time and space coordinates. "c" is the maximum you can get. Now if you ask why should we live in SO(3,1) space-time, that's a completely different story...

None of this is the issue; speed of light stays constant, as does distance measurements. What changes is the understanding of the stability of a photon of light in a vacuum and the effect of this instability on travel time while passing near a gravitational well.

So while it's a photon of light, it travels light speed. When the energy converts to kinetic energy for a breather, it is affected by the gravitational pull, in a manner significantly stronger than a neutrino is affected. When it then flops back to being a photon, it is once again traveling at the speed of light.

What intrigues me about this is that this will also have implications regarding relativity, as every time the light flips state, it is essentially anchoring itself to a location in space from which the next photon flop can take its bearing. My mind can't quite grasp the further implications of this right now, but it could really mess with observation of light from a moving point (which all points are).

The recalibration is mostly on how we project distances based on light measurements; it's now become significantly trickier, as we need to account for gravity at specific moments.

Gravity affects energy, not mass. Regardless the photon travels as a light or as a pair of virtual electron and positron, the gravity effect is the same. Why otherwise do we have gravitational lenses. I don't really know what this article is all about; gravity and quantum theory don't quite mesh well, it is well known. This sort of result, even assuming it is conceptually and mathematically solid, which is a far stretch, is a poke in the sky.

When light travels through a medium containing matter it will be absorbed and "stored", for some time, in the exited states of the atoms before it is emitted again. This can account for the "slowing" down effect, which again means that the photon you measure with your photon detector wasn't actually slowed down, it simply not the same photon that was emitted from your photon source.

THIS

This is the source of all troubles in the world - bringing in improper analogies and building "theories" upon them. Let's begin with that the photon is not a particle flying through space, it is a probability wave. Particles do not fly, the probability wave propagates. Likewise, light remains a wave in medium, and it is that wave that is slowed due to interference with the charges in atoms.

Try to explain with your little analogy the greater speed of light in some meta-materials; what, the atoms emit photon before they absorb it?

Some times it is just better to accept that your thinking platform needs a change than try to continue squeezing the world into a completely inadequate concept-box.

Actually I didn't see anything outrageously scammy in this incident, neither the linked reports were whitewash and bad science any more then the "excellent dissection" of the claims.

So the "dissector" did some back-of-the-envelop order-of-magnitude calculation and found that 1 minute "rope" function cannot be sustained unless the tag is within 50cm of a router. I thought the matter of fact here is not 1 minute "rope", but 5 minute "rope", which would supposedly require 5 times less energy and can be placed 2 times further away. Using the same number the dissecting article uses, their tag in 5 minute rope uses just about 2-3 microW of power, as much as the counter article itself calculates is available at 4 m distance.

What more, the second linked report openly shows how tag can sort off maintain its energy at 1-2 m from emitters, but looses charge at 3m, which maybe very sloppy experiment, have to give it that, but IN NO WAY CONTRADICTS with anything the "critics" say, actually.

I can agree that 1-2m range in lowest ping mode is not practical, as the critics seized upon, however, people THIS IS A PROTOTYPE not a final product. If they had already polished and awesome device, why the fk would they need a kickstarter campaign???

That said, I can see a ton of ways they can try and improve their product to be more practical after collecting the funding: they can try to further reduce power consumption of the circuit, if they just used off-the-shelf components now, the possibility of this is quite quite plausible; they can try to work out some software tricks, such as remembering the location of the tag the last time it handshake'd; they can try to register a freq band and sell dedicated RF charging stations for charging their tags at home; they can ask people to re-charge their tags every two weeks by placing them in 1-2m radius of a wifi router -- any one of these is better than having a batteried device that needs change of battery or be plugged into a charger every time.

As for Dr Paul McArthur identity, it is clearly stated that he is a research professor at U of Utah, and he may not in fact have a sizable footprint on the "internet". I know a ton of professors who do not use LinkedIn or FB, or even if they do have such account, keep in nominally. That's because these people are too busy with teaching, advising students, doing research, and managing universities to also deal with the self-masturbation called social networking. Besides, they already have an outlet to connect to the people they need, it is called peer-reviewed journals and academic publications. So it is quite possible the guy wouldn't have a ton of blogs, twitter streams and yada yada. Where his footprint should be searched is in academic journals and patent office, where he does have hits as some people here already pointed out.

I agree that the project description is overly optimistic and may not quite correspond the final product they will be able to put out, but to call it a complete scam it is just another mass hysteria driven by know-it-all nerds feeling empowered by self-published blogs and modern social networking, who think they know it all but but really don't know shit.

Now if some one wants to sign a contract that pays me crap loads and gives me bonuses no matter how badly I screw up... I think I would be ok with that.

Yeah good luck with that, you are just naive or stupid, more likely the second. He got that contract not because he is better or more qualified, but just because the system you live in had it made for him. respectively you will NEVER get that contract. If you care about your family and community, you would advocate a system that improves life for them. what are you saying, however, to put it in a more understandable perspective, is that in Rome slaves should not have complained because their owner has it that they are housed and fed. I hope you understand all the nonse of your words (unless you are the owner).

There is no spin of the story. there are well publicized (at least in Russian newspapers) statements by officials in Putin administration what Russia will do if Yanukovych fails to disband Maidan [by any means possible]. and that was, force Ukraine federalize power to the regions, instigate hostile takeover in eastern regions ala Crimea, followed by referendum under unidentified armed people, and followed by absorption of said regions into Russia. the plan voiced and published quite openly back in December/January, all the way to Dnepr.
So what you have now in Ukraine is not a country on brink of civil war. What you have is 5 years in making plan by Putin to re-absorb Ukraine and reinstate USSR, with Yanukovych de-facto destroying Ukrainian military and police ever since he came into office, transferring 30 billion USD of "government" money in January to Russia in cash and another 100 billion by other means earlier, and then deserting to Russia when things got uncomfortably hot.
Once that sabotage stage of Putin's plan came to end, read Maydan, the active phase of the plan kicked in. That comprised sending in russian sabotage units from Crimea and east, led by people who nearly openly identify themselves in papers like Komsomolskaya Pravda as GRU operatives with the task to instigate or mimick, whichever necessary, civil unrest in Easter regions, yada yada read above, suppress in the most violeng form any pro-ukrainian dissent, so that it can't develop into anything before Russian troops arve, etcr. this s is accompanied by strong Russian propaganda on world stage, that worked for them so well with Assad, that consists of , no matter what actually happens, claim that Ukraine is on brink of civil war, Ukraine is shooting on peaceful citizens, Ukraine should move its army out of eastern regions, and - deny any involvement just as it worked so well for Assad. Even as pro-ukranian rallies are violently beaten one after another, pro-ukrainian activists shot and found dead, and overall the truth emerges that's what's going on is orchestrated Russian special forces spectacle, and noone in their clear mind and under 50 years of age, who had seen Russia from outside, ever wants to live under Putin.
So that's the writing on the wall, now go ahead and correlate that with what yo learn from media. In fact western published actions are way way pro-russian compared to say Ukrainian newspapers; you can't imagine what actual shit is going on in Ukraine's eastern regions if you just read CNN or BBC - people are running from slavyansk, for example, saying that they are effectively being held hostage by foreign spec ops UN t that took over the city, speaking *Chechen* at the checkpoints, but the above is the generally correct picture.

when bullets are flying at least there is faint hope the person behind the crosshair is directing them. when a gas bomb gets dropped every mother, child and baby sleeping in their bad in the freaking area suffocate and die you moron

You are missing the point that you'll be the one in 10 who normally would be willing to pay "money" for "free" a service. So make it more like $200/year, and then Twitter will happily make it happen for you.

or didn't call the examiner's supervisor. The supervisor's name and phone number are provided with every official notice that explains a rejection. And there is more than one option to appeal and get the Examiner's reasoning reviewed by people with higher pay-grades.

You apparently have no idea what you are talking about. The patent is followed through by a single examiner, and all and any appeals all way until the final rejection ALL go through the said bastard. There are no balances and checks, if the examiner says an "A" in your patent is a "Z", you can argue all you want and that won't make a difference. I had three rounds with an examiner who returned completely irrelevant references to the patent, and in the end, he just said -- I don't give a fuck, I'll still reject your patent... Only after final rejection you can file an appeal that will be reviewed by a different examiner(s). But the chances are this new bastard(s) will be just sitting next to your old bastard... so you can guess how that might play out... In the meanwhile, you are $10k-20k, or whatever, out of your budget. And again, there is nowhere to appeal - if the examiner in final decision says that "A" is "Z"... well, good luck with that... arguing is like talking to a wall... good luck with the #$%@ US patent system